Meteor hits Russia

[Magnum]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/hundreds-injured-blast-meteor-falls-russia/story?id=18510055

[Zen]

This is very exciting news !!!
...Not that I need to see death and mayhem,...
Are they filming a sequel to "Armageddon" ???
Wired Magazine already has an advisory up: There Is No Way to Stop Space Rocks From Hurtling to Earth and Killing You

[Magnum]

< "But the places where people are is actually pretty small," he says. Even the injuries that occurred at <Chelyabinsk were mostly concussions and accidents from shattered glass, not from the meteorite itself.
<Close but no cigar, space: "Your odds of dying by a meteor are pretty damn small.

What is being said is true, but eventually one will hit much closer to a populated area.

[MichaelW]

If it's big enough how close it hits won't matter, like it didn't matter for the dinosaurs.

[dedndave]

size isn't the only thing that matters (sic)
momentum = mass x velocity

generally, these things are hurling around at extreme velocities, relative to the reference frame of our planet
with a LOT of luck, a specific rock may be traveling nearly the same path and speed as earth
if that's the case, things may not be so bad, even if it is large
you have a better chance of winning the lottery and living long enough to spend it   :P

this one that hit Russia seems like some kind of warning for things to come   :icon_eek:
luckily, most of the rock disintegrated in the atmosphere 
luckily, it seems the death toll is relatively small compared to what it might have been   :t
the injuries reported were mostly broken glass and possibly falling objects
i guess the rock, itself, landed in a lake
sub-zero temperatures - probably not too many people fishing   :P

[Magnum]

Some brick walls were collapsed, don't know if a fragment hit it or what.

I wonder if anyone got some sound bites ?

Imagine our atmosphere slowed it down a wee bit.

Andy

[dedndave]

it caused an earthquake of something like 6.6
a lot of the damage seems to have been from the sonic boom   :icon_eek:

a few amateur videos....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzlI6gGko2w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBvotWfR3j4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8QjaAPrxvQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyYM_x1Glng

time to change my underwear....

[Magnum]

Better get some  more underwear.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2013/02/asteroids-rock-except-when-they-hit-you/

More than 1,000 people were injured Friday, when the largest meteor to strike the Earth in two generations disintegrated above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, raining burning bits of rock that shattered windows and caused a panic.

Before disintegrating into thousands of meteorites, the meteor that Russians watched blazing across the sky in a burst of bright light, probably weighed around 7,700 tons and was about 49 feet across, NASA estimated.
nc russia meteorite nt 130215 wmain Meteoroids Rock! (Except When They Hit You)

[dedndave]

i did a little searching....

it seems the meteor exploded while passing through the atmosphere
the shock wave from that blast did a lot of damage - so it wasn't just a sonic boom, as i had thought

as for the "...raining burning bits of rock that shattered windows..."
not so sure about that

[Magnum]

I may have gotten so hot that it exploded.

The light looked almost blindingly bright.

[dedndave]

from what i can gather, it was a "bolide"
pressure on the leading edge and trailing edge cause it to pancake and explode   :icon_eek:
i saw another video from last year - a very similar one in South Carolina
just not as close - may have landed in the Atlantic or some uninhabited area